


Between Worlds

by reylomancy



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ben Solo Deserved Better, Eat Me JJ, F/M, HEA, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-TRoS, TRoS Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:20:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21882904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reylomancy/pseuds/reylomancy
Summary: A post-TRoS fix-it fic (spoilers!). The Reylo happily ever after I'd like to see.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 56
Kudos: 401
Collections: TROS Reylo Fix-it Fics





	Between Worlds

**Author's Note:**

> I watched TRoS twice on Thursday, cried a lot, digested, and manically wrote this entire fic Friday afternoon. It was surprisingly cathartic. I spent long enough writing this, I think I temporarily convinced my brain it's the canon ending.
> 
> Hope this makes some other hurting Reylos feel better. And hopefully it's not a rehash of too many other fix-it fics, I haven't read many yet. Enjoy!
> 
> * * *
> 
> TW: thoughts of self harm. For a brief moment, Rey is very depressed and thinks about an action that would harm her.

Rey doesn't stay long on Tatooine, just long enough to bury the sabers.

Lando and Chewy have kept the Falcon. They're flying around the galaxy with Finn and Rose and Jannah, trying to track down other defected troopers and young First Order conscripts. Trying to figure out who they are and send them home, if home is still a place. Lando’s resources should make the challenge easier, they hope.

After the Battle of Exogol, Finn had finally gotten the chance to tell Rey what he’d been trying to: he suspected he was Force sensitive. Rey had taught him a few training exercises before he left, and packed away the Jedi texts aboard the Falcon for him to read in his free moments. She wishes him well with them, and he gets the hint that she’s done with the Jedi for now, isn’t looking to be anyone’s master.

Rey is flying Luke's X-wing. It feels good to give an old broken thing new purpose. After Tatooine, she returns BB-8 to Poe. The others had wanted to go with Rey to Luke’s old homeworld, for moral support, but Rey couldn't bear to be around anyone else.

It had been nearly an impossible thing, to act happy for the Resistance and her friends once the battle was over. She still can’t believe she’d managed to hide just how torn inside she is. _No one really knows_ _you,_ an ugly voice whispers in her head. It’s true, they never would have understood about Ben. She couldn't bear to talk to them about him, even to tell them he’d been on Exogol. It only would have made her pain worse, to rehash those final moments that were so joyful yet so ultimately tragic. She doesn’t want those moments to belong to anyone else but him and her.

Rey leaves BB-8 with Poe and what's left of the Resistance—most of the forces are still together, trying to clean up the galaxy some after the chaos of the last battle. Poe is coordinating some of Lando's volunteers in attacks on the remaining First Order ships still out there.

The moment Rey breaks atmo above the Resistance base on Ajan Kloss, she goes numb in the X-wing cockpit. There’s a wave of feeling she’s been suppressing inside of her for days, more overwhelming and chaotic than the sea surrounding the old Death Star ruins, and it takes time to rebuild its power within her.

She almost forgets the Sith wayfinder is still plugged in and routing her back to goddamned Exogol, and Rey nearly turns the X-wing around. But then she realizes it's where she wants to be right now. It's the last place she saw him. Ben.

* * *

There are no horrors left on the planet, either at its surface or in the caverns below. Palpatine's equipment was destroyed in their final battle. The Sith are gone. Even the planet’s atmosphere isn't particularly stormy anymore. Without Palpatine's horrible energy to feed off of, the place is just… empty.

There are so many things Rey wants, she thinks, as she travels her slow descent into the throne chamber of the Sith. But she knows of only one she can have for sure.

She finally breaks down when she finds what she’s looking for. Ben's clothes. She immediately slips on the sweater, clutches the fabric desperately to her and tries to catch his scent, but everything in the chamber smells of rocks and damp and ozone by now. She fingers the hole in the stomach, remembers how she'd healed him. It hadn't felt anything like healing the worm on Pasaana. That had felt like a cost, had hurt her. There was no cost to healing Ben, it had only made her feel stronger. She'd nearly cried at the feeling of their energy coming together. It had been like feeling herself become whole, like forgiving her own wounds. Like coming home.

The numbness snaps fully now, and Rey wails her grief into the dark, broken chamber. She cries until her voice breaks. She screams for Ben, fists her hands in his sweater and begs him to come back to her. It wasn't supposed to be this way.

"Be with me. Be with me. Be with me!"

There is no answer.

She crawls to the side of the pit, sharp chips of rock cutting into her palms and knees. She'd already been gone, but she'd seen Ben's memories of his desperate climb out of it, felt his determination all the while to reach her, to save her. He’d been so strong. He’d done it without the help of the Jedi.

"Why didn't you help him?" Rey snarls into the darkness, the rocks at the edge of the pit crumbling under her hands and into the endless black beneath. "He was your blood! Your heir! A Jedi! Why did you let him suffer?"

There is no answer. As the Sith have disappeared, so too have the Jedi, it seems.

Rey lies there on Exogol, at the side of the pit, for three days. She's not sure if she sleeps. She must though, because there are dreams of Ben, wonderful, beautiful Ben. Smiling at her. Kissing her. She wakes up crying when she realizes he's not really there. She thinks about rolling into the pit herself, just letting herself fall into the darkness, but it's not a serious thought. She'd never disrespect what Ben gave her. What's left of him lives inside her now, and she could never hurt that part of herself.

It's that realization that finally forces her to get up and make the slow, weak walk back to the X-wing. She needs to eat. Take care of herself. Stop wasting what it cost Ben so much to give her.

Rey climbs into the X-wing. The glowing green Sith wayfinder catches her eye, and she rips it harshly from the wires in the ship’s console, as if removing the heart from a living being. She knows what such a thing would feel like now. Her own chest feels as if it has been reduced to a tear of exposed, sparking wires too.

The tiny red ember within the wayfinder stirs in response to her touch, becomes a larger, swirling mass. She suddenly senses a presence behind her, breath on her neck. Her stomach does a flip, her empty chest throbs with a hopeful pain.

"Ben?" she whispers. Turns around.

She's met with only her own face, the dark version of herself from the Death Star. It still wears the black cloak, the gaunt, white face that is somehow still Rey’s beneath all the sharp angles. The vision sneers at her, and Rey realizes they must look more alike than ever. She feels like a husk of herself, hollowed out, brittle, fragile. And she's still wearing Ben's black sweater. The dark fabric makes her hands look pale as bone where the long sleeves are rolled up around her wrists.

"He's dead," the vision hisses with a smirk. "It's your fault, you know."

Rey knows.

"If only you'd taken his hand in the beginning, you could have been happy together, strong together. You ruined your own future. The Light made you stupid and weak," the vision spits.

Rey knows.

"It made him weak too. He deserves his fate."

Anger burns through Rey, quicker than she thought was possible. She hadn’t thought she'd feel anything but misery again anytime soon.

She makes an animal shriek at the vision and crushes the wayfinder in her hand, clenches it until the pieces are cutting through her hand and her blood is dripping into the cockpit and the feeling of pain, just pain overwhelms her once more.

* * *

She lets the X-wing guide itself somewhere, anywhere. She ends up on Ahch-To. Whether it's the Force, or simply the last coordinates still in the X-wing's memory, Rey doesn't care. She hasn't reached out to the Force since Tatooine. Since she'd seen Leia and Luke in its swirling energy, but not Ben. Fuck the Force.

Maybe now that the galaxy doesn’t need her anymore, exile is the right thing to do. She leaves the X-wing behind and climbs the familiar green hills, chooses a hut to shelter her from the pouring rain. When the weather clears, Rey leaves her hut to go clean herself in the sea and treat her still-bleeding hand. She washes Ben's sweater along with her body.

The caretakers notice her, but stay out of her way. They may not have had a good relationship when she was here to train with Luke, but the shrine maids can tell there's something horribly wrong, and they do her small kindnesses where they can. There is food in her hut when she returns to it, sometimes.

Rey has more dreams than ever, often of the times Ben came to her through the Force while she was on the island. She even goes searching and finds the blanket she was wrapped in when they first touched hands around the fire. It's almost too much. Rey doesn't know whether to live in that hut forever, or burn it down.

Coming back to Ahch-To may have been a mistake. The dreams of him here are so vivid, like she can feel him in the Force again. Every night she wears his sweater to sleep, begs him again. _Be with me._ When she is close to sleep, it feels so much like he is here, on this island. Sometimes it's a comfort. To kiss him, to hold him, to speak to him in her mind's eye. Mostly it's unbearable. She alternates between sleeping far too much, chasing her dreams, or wandering the hills at night, chasing the feeling that he’s still somewhere she might be able to reach if she just tried a little harder, just knew where to look.

After a week, she gets back in the X-wing, intending to leave. She gets it into the air, then realizes she can't do it. There's something that’s pulling her here, strong, almost like she’d pulled on the First Order transport back on Pasaana. She lets the ship down on a hill across the island from the caretakers’ huts, decides she’ll make her own hut out here against the frame of the X-wing. It’s something to do.

She knows there's likely nothing really left on Ahch-To to hold her here—nothing past the dreams, his memory. But she's lived off of less, and anyway, she knows she's too weak to let him go, to move on. She realizes in a way, she’s falling into old patterns. Living out of an old piece of war equipment, no plans past spending the rest of her life alone, speaking to ghosts, waiting for the one she loves to return. There’s nothing she’d rather do though. Not now that she's lost him.

She thinks about her parents some. Not much. In the end, it's enough to know they didn't abandon her callously after all. After Ben told her the truth in the air above Kajimi, she’d had time to refine her memories with the help of Force concentration. She remembers them hugging her goodbye, but not much else about them. They're essentially strangers.

No, she doesn't really think of her parents. The only thing they really remind her of now is Palpatine.

She wonders whether she'd have known the truth sooner, if she had been trained in the Force earlier. She could have looked for them and sensed they were gone. Looked for their Force ghosts maybe. Left Jakku sooner, lived her life. Maybe reached out and found Ben, in the Force, hurting, gone to him and comforted him before it was too late and Kylo Ren was born.

It's been weeks since Exogol. In the days that immediately followed, she’d done little else than reach out in the Force, but she hadn't sensed even the smallest trace of his presence. Since she’s been on Ahch-To, she’s returned almost every day to the cliff where Luke had first tried to train her in sensing things through the Force. Nothing, still. It's making her uneasy.

Rey’s starting to wonder if she's cut herself off from the Force like Luke in her grief, or if she's just feeling far too much pain to focus on anything. It hurts too much for her to really stop and meditate on her feelings for long enough to determine which it is.

It's hard not to try talking to the Jedi in this place, but Rey thinks she's still too angry to make it work. Too emotional in general. Emotions were never something their order respected, why would they ever bother to listen to the calls of someone roiling in her anger and pain and longing?

* * *

Luke’s ghost never makes another appearance on Ahch-To, but sometimes Rey sees flickers of another man in Jedi robes. He looks a little like Ben, enough that it pains her to glimpse him. She thinks it's his grandfather, Anakin. She only sees him sometimes, usually on the path down by the water, the one she once took into the cavern that showed her an infinite mirror of herself. Anakin never appears long or speaks to her, but sometimes Rey thinks he wants something from her.

Well too bad, all she wanted from him was for him to help his grandson, and he failed them both. There's nothing else she wants to do with him.

She’s angry when she sees Anakin. She thinks about all the cruel turns of the Force she’s suffered since she learned it existed, and it builds her rage higher, hotter. She remembers what her Sith vision had said to her. There's still a scar on her palm from when she destroyed the vision and the wayfinder. The same palm she healed Ben with. The same one she'd touched his hand with. She gets angrier and angrier, and it still feels like a safer emotion than sadness somehow.

No, not safer. But more… significant. Sadness will cripple her, but anger… she can do something with anger. It becomes easier to connect to the Darker ebbs in the Force on the island. She can always feel it now, whenever a porg youngling is dashed on the waves, whenever a caretaker plucks a living thing out of their garden for food. The season begins to change, and the slow decay of everything on the island is a feeling that never leaves her bones. And Rey feels the mirror cavern call to her again.

* * *

It's the middle of the night, and she's awake after dreaming of Ben. He'd been as she'd once seen him while on Ahch-To. Bare-chested and soft for her. In the dream, he is dozing somewhere green, a faint smile on his lips. They're red and lovely and twitch in his sleep. His dark hair is soft against his cheeks, and Rey can reach out and touch it whenever she wants—his lips always flicker into a wider smile when she does. She lays against his wide, muscled chest, feeling warm and electric, like she's basking in their shared life force.

She wakes up startled, to find Anakin's Force ghost silently watching her in her hut.

Rey sits up, irritated, and rubs the sleep out of her eyes. She’s still thinking of her shirtless Ben. “‘Let the past die,’” Rey recites. Anakin does not reply.

“That's what he told me once.” Rey huffs a bitter laugh. “I thought he was Kylo Ren, simply saying something cruel, something meant to turn my heart. Now I see he believed it, and why.” She swings her feet out of bed, pulls Ben’s sweater down around her arms and stomach from where it’s ridden up in her sleep. “After all, you were his past, and you left him to die.”

“And what did you do after he told you that? Did you give up on the past?” Anakin asks her in a patient, measured tone as she scowls and looks for her shoes.

Rey’s mouth falls open—she’s too shocked to reply to the first words he’s actually spoken—but he disappears almost immediately. She quickly finishes lacing her boots and darts out of the hut.

She’s been feeling her anger drawing her to the cave for days. Where she’d gone immediately after the Force had bonded her with Ben once. And now Anakin’s words seem to encourage her to return there also. There’s a part of her that wants to stubbornly refuse to humor him. Then she thinks about how long Ben waited for Anakin to speak to him, to say something, anything. She won't waste this, for him.

It's still dark out when Rey takes the plunge into the cave's black water. She pulls herself up onto the shore. The mirrored walls still stand imposingly, but she is not afraid this time. She does not need answers about her past anymore. She knows she has the power to reject it now. To let it die, and not mourn its loss. There is only one part of her past she will cling to now—the part she longed to spin into her present and her future. She is not afraid. She is angry, and heart hurt, and desperate, and still so in love it's a physical pain.

She stands in front of the wall, touches it as she did the first time. Now, instead of showing her herself, the rock moves below her hand like a door.

When Rey steps beyond, she becomes instantly awash with a feeling she thinks might be like traveling through hyperspace without a ship for protection. But instead of a tunnel of little blue lights, she sees things. Moments, happening all around her, suspended in time, space, the Force.

Rey forces her hand to move—somehow, impossibly, she can still feel the smooth cave wall beneath her fingers—and suddenly she's opening a door to somewhere else entirely. Some- _when_ else entirely, it seems.

A lovely estate on a pastoral planet, perhaps Naboo. There are yellow flowers that smell like honey on a little wooden table, and huge white doors set with window panes from top to bottom, that overlook a verdant, sleepy, sun-drenched garden. It's the kind of place Rey always imagined her parents might suddenly arrive from and whisk her away to.

There's a crib carved in a wood that matches the table with the flowers, but when she looks inside, it's empty. Rey takes a few steps across the floor, her footsteps muffled by lovely woven rugs, and moves closer to the windowpane-door leading out to the garden. It's cracked open just slightly, and Rey peers outside.

Shock flies through her. There's a little boy out there, with sweet rosy cheeks and a thick head of black hair. He seems to float in the air, but for the two Force ghosts who stand together, holding him in their arms.

"He's so beautiful, Anakin." The ghostly woman is smiling. Rey sees Ben in her eyes, the slope of her jaw, her regal shoulders.

"Ben." Anakin whispers, pressing his forehead to the little boy's head. He's asleep, perhaps lulled by the warmth of the sunny garden.

The woman turns to Anakin. "Are you sure there's nothing more we can do for him?" She sounds pained. Reluctant to let the child go. Her grandson.

Anakin presses a gentle hand through young Ben's small, dark curls. "I wish, Padme. I wish it more than anything. But we cannot do so much from within the Force. Palpatine is still out there, alive enough for it to count. His voice will always be louder than ours. He'll never leave Ben alone long enough for him to see us. All we can do is wait until the time comes when our help will count."

Padme gives a quiet sob. "I hate this, Anakin."

Anakin shifts one hand from his grandson so he can place it on her cheek. "One day. I've seen it in the Force. All we have to do is wait for her."

Padme suddenly turns around, as if she's just noticed Rey standing behind them. Her heart-shaped mouth spreads into a lovely smile. Her soft brown curls somehow manage to retain a golden shine despite the blue tinge of the Force.

“It's you.”

The colors in the garden melt around Rey, and the feeling of hyperspace, hypertime is back. She sees other things, more fleeting this time. Her father as a young man, hiding in a dark room with a tear-streaked face and a bottle full of dark liquid. Her mother, fixing her buns and hugging her goodbye on Jakku. Han and Leia, tearfully embracing. A grown-up Ben—though still younger than the man she'd known—sitting alone in the ruin of the Jedi temple she once saw burning in a vision, his head in his hands. Ben's thigh, warm beneath her hand in Snoke's throne room. She can feel his triumph radiating off of him as they stand alongside one another. Ben's face, soft and smiling and breathtaking beneath her hands in a hellish cavern deep in the Unknown Regions.

Rey curls her fingers around his face, into his hair. She clings to this version of him, suddenly terrified. The hyperspace feeling tries to pull her away before the horrible thing she knows comes next, and she cries out as she holds onto him. Her fingers tangle in his hair, and she pulls her face to his again and again, kissing the handsome smile that still stretches across his face. She breathes deeply in between kisses, gulping desperately for air, trying to force the mixture of him and her that now lives inside of her through his skin, his lips, their shared breath. Her hands delve beneath his shirt and splay against his warm skin, willing more of her energy to him. He feels charged, electric beneath her fingertips, like something so much stronger than the Force.

Ben returns her kisses sweetly, eagerly first, then more hungrily as he gains his strength back from her. One of his hands falls from her face to dip beneath her white tunic, coming to rest over her heart. He rocks them forward fervently, as if he wants to press her body with the solid weight of his. He feels firm and strong beneath her hands, but Rey can still feel the spaces in him that have been drained empty that she has not yet filled. The ones she must fill if she wants him back, alive.

She is trembling in his arms now, trembling beneath his insistent body as he kisses her dizzy. Her breath is still warm, where it mingles with his, where his tongue presses into her mouth and he drinks her in. But her lips are going numb, and she is starting to feel a great coldness taking hold deep in her bones.

Ben notices the moment she does, and he tries to break away. She clutches him to her with every bit of her strength that remains, tries to force him to take the rest.

“Rey,” he breaths over her lips. His voice is thick and trembling. “Please.”

“You deserve life, Ben.” Rey tries to whisper, but she’s not sure it manages to come out. “You deserve to live.”

Whether she spoke the words or not, he understands her. He’s always understood her. “No,” Ben murmurs thickly, “I don’t.” And because she understands him too, she can see in his mind, underneath the triumph of the love they feel in this moment, how he’s afraid. How he’s unsure of how to forgive himself, how to live with what he’s seen and felt and done all these years.

“Call to your family, Ben. They forgive you. They love you.” _We all do_. His mouth works with emotion, and he swallows, hesitant. Rey feels herself getting colder, and she doesn't have the strength to shiver against it anymore. As dear as it is to see his face, hovering above hers, Rey closes her eyes and focuses.

_Be with me. Be with me. Be with me._

She's not looking, but she can sense when his eyes slip closed too. She can feel him tentatively reaching out into the Force with her.

_Be with me. Be with me._

There's no hyperspace feeling pulling her away from this moment, but nonetheless, Rey can suddenly see others stepping out of time, space, the Force. Answering their call.

_Be with me._

Two bearded men in Jedi robes, the younger standing beside a smiling Anakin and Padme with one arm slung around Ben's grandfather. A young Togruta female, poking her head playfully between Anakin and Padme. A bald man in Jedi robes towering over a small green species with large fuzzy ears. The diminutive Jedi chuckles giddily to himself. Luke and Leia and Han, younger versions of them Rey recognizes from R2's archives. Leia is wrapped in Han's arms, smiling softly, and a blonde, floppy-haired Luke lowers his head to them in greeting.

The Jedi gather around, offering Ben their encouragement, their faith. Rey knows Ben sees them too when he lets out a shaky breath across her face, starts to tremble beneath her hands.

Rey watches Han and Leia step forward and kneel beside her and Ben. They each place one hand on Ben's shoulders, and Rey can feel the warmth that suddenly flows through him when they make contact.

“You deserve love, Ben. You deserve forgiveness.” Leia whispers.

“And you have it from us. You always have.” Han rumbles beside her.

“You deserve to live, sweetheart. Be happy.” Leia presses a hand against Ben’s face and he leans into it with a choked sob.

Leia looks from her son to Rey, and smiles. “Thank you, Rey. Thank you for my son.” She places her other hand on Rey’s hair, and Rey can feel Leia’s warmth swell in her, in Ben too.

Han shoots her a grin that's a mirror image of Ben's, and the two of them disappear.

Luke steps forward, and places a hand on Ben's shoulder. His nephew shudders at his touch.

“Ben, listen. I was weak, and I failed you. I'm so sorry. It was my own fault for not trusting in you.” Luke tells him solemnly.

Rey can feel Ben's lips tremble in the space between them. A tear splashes from his face and against her skin as he nods his head to his uncle.

Luke breathes a sigh. "You both deserved better. We weren’t there for you when you needed us. All I can say is we’re here now, and I hope that's enough. I’m proud of you both.” He suddenly looks older and grizzled again as he shoots Rey one last smile, then Luke disappears too.

Only Padme and Anakin remain beside them. Rey realizes at some point she’s gained the strength to open her eyes again, and she watches their Force ghosts, slightly blue and as clear as they looked to Rey on Naboo, as they stand on either side of where she and Ben still cling to each other.

Anakin runs a hand through Ben’s hair, the way he once did on Naboo. “You make your own choices, kid. You build your own legacy. Never be afraid of where you came from, and never let it have control over you. Never let the past poison the future.” Anakin’s eyes shift to Rey, and he winks at her.

Padme smiles. “I’m glad you found love. Be happy, Ben. Rey.”

Anakin and Padme and the rest of the Jedi disappear in light and warmth, and Rey can feel the pull of time and space begin to tear her away from Exogol, this moment. She claws against it, trying to cling to Ben, never wanting to leave his arms again. He holds tight to her too, pushes his hands into her unraveling bun and presses his lips against the skin of her neck, but the world between worlds flows too strong, and Rey feels herself begin to drift.

* * *

She feels hard, wet rock beneath her back, the rush of waves and the quiet echo of the cave walls in her ears. Rey's eyes flutter open and she can see dawn is breaking through the hole in the rock overhead. The sky is painted with the soft shades of early morning, and a gentle light filters in, lightening the shadows of the cave. Rey’s head spins as she sits up. In front of her, the dark water of the sea laps against her feet. She turns and sees the mirror wall she passed though behind her. It's cracked harshly across its face now. The dark pulse of the Force is gone from it—it feels ordinary. Rey feels her stomach turn heavy with dread.

"Ben," her voice cracks harshly. She sounds as though she's been sleeping like the dead. She _had_ almost died, again, trying to save him. She looks down at herself, where his black sweater dangles once again from her frame, heavy and sodden. The lump in her throat thickens, and she feels tears prick at her eyes.

Her body is cold and sore, as if she's been sleeping on the wet cave floor all night. She forces her limbs to standing and moves to the cracked wall. Her tears run over as she approaches the reflective surface and sees herself moving closer in the glassy rockface.

Her clouded reflection suddenly seems taller, wider, and Rey's heart starts to thud almost straight through her chest. And then her reflection raises its hand to the shattered mirror wall, and she rushes to follow the motion. The rock is warm where their hands meet.

For the first time in a long while, Rey finds balance in the Force, the Dark and the Light and every gradient in between once again available to her. She closes her eyes. The warmth at her scarred hand grows, becomes soft, smooth, heavy.

When she opens her eyes, Ben is standing before her, holding her hand in his. Not a Force ghost. Ben. Rey lets out a soft gasp, and so does he. She reaches for his face and he leans into her touch, wraps his arms around her body to pull her closer. She searches his warm brown eyes incredulously, watches as they dart across her face, as if taking stock of whether she is really, truly in his arms.

"Ben, you saved me." Rey murmurs, a sob thickening her voice. More tears run down her face as she realizes he is actually, truly here, not a vision, not a moment refracted from another bend in time. His hand is instantly on her face to catch the tears rolling down her cheeks.

He grins at her, and she can feel tears running down his face now also. "You saved me too. So many times, Rey."

He runs his hands down her arms reverently. She watches his eyebrows shoot up when his fingers catch on the damp black sweater.

"My shirt?"

For the first time, Rey notices he's standing bare-chested before her. She stops herself from looking down and confirming his pants have also not reappeared with him. She feels her face flush. "I've been sleeping in it. Since you were..."

Emotions flicker across Ben's face, pain and awe and softness and joy and a dozen other things Rey can't name. He pulls her close against his chest, smoothes back her wild hair with one large, warm hand and presses a soft kiss against her temple.

"I love you, Rey."

Her heart no longer feels like its connections have been hacked and severed, but there is a new sparking there that feels like a live current running through her chest and every inch of skin he touches.

Rey tilts up her head and presses her lips softly to his chest, his throat, his jaw, until he lets out a happy muffled groan and bends to meet her lips with his.

"I love you, Ben."

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed reading and felt a little healed by this! The big things I wanted to fix from TRoS were the lack of mourning for Ben, the ending on Tatooine implying Rey lives there now for some ridiculous reason, the Jedi helping Rey and ignoring Ben on Exogol, and of course reparations for Ben and Rey. I probably took some liberties with Force ghost Padme and Han, since they were never Jedi, but I prefer to go with our lord and savior Rian Johnson's take on the Force: it's in everyone. For a movie that was supposed to wrap up all three trilogies, there was a decided lack of prequel content, so I tried remedying that too.
> 
> Well, there's plenty else that's bad to mine from TRoS, I'll probably be writing a chapter 2 to this, but as more of a bonus to the HEA.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think, and I'd love to hear your own fix-it headcanons!


End file.
